1. Field of the Invention
The subject of the present invention is a cut-resistant yarn intended especially for the production of garments for protection against mechanical attack.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is widely known in the literature, and from the patents U.S. Pat. No. 3,883,898, GB 1 586 890, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,777,789, 4,004,295, GB 2 018 323, DE 1 610 495 and, EP 0 118 898, that the combination of various fibrous materials of polymeric origin, or inorganic origin in the family of vitreous or ceramic, or metallic, compounds, are employed for the purposes of reinforcing yarns intended for the field of protection against mechanical attack and/or perforation.
Such personal protection equipment is most often in the form of gloves, sleeves, aprons or any part of a garment, and are generally knitted or, more rarely woven.
These parts of protective equipment must possess very good mechanical properties, in particular as regards shear stresses, without loosing the flexibility and the lightness that are necessary for good dexterity.
In general, particular polymers are found to be the materials employed, such as polyamides, para-aramids, highmolecular-weight polyethylenes, LCP (Liquid-Crystal Polymer) fibres, polybenzimidazole and ceramic-filled polyester. These materials have in common the particular feature of being highly crystalline and consequently possessing a fairly high intrinsic hardness. This is because the hardness of the materials used is very high and substantially governs the cutting or shearing mechanisms to which they are exposed. As an indication, crystalline and semicrystalline polymeric materials have hardnesses, measured on the Mohs scale, of between 2 and 3.
The yarns made of pure polymers chosen from the above materials, do not make it possible to achieve Class 5 classifications according to the European Standard EN388 for thin knits, ensuring good dexterity as must be the case with protective gloves intended for cutting. Such personal protection equipment, greatly used in the field of sheet metalwork, must, in addition to providing users with good grip, be very comfortable, ensuring that the equipment will always be worn by exposed personnel.
To solve the compromise, allowing gloves to be produced that are both flexible and light, and therefore comfortable, while still being classified as Class 5 according to EN388, many companies incorporate inorganic filaments in combination with polymeric filaments. Glass and stainless steel are generally used for reinforcement, without making the yarns intended for producing the cut-resistant protective gloves too heavy. The Mohs hardness of steel is 5 and that of glass is 6/7.
The Products Proposed Have Two Major Drawbacks:
The glass or stainless steel filaments have a low bending resistance and break. The free ends, despite assemblies of polymer filaments intended to sheath them using wrapping operations, end up with them passing through the layers of the wrapped polymer filaments, the effect of which is to prick the hands of operators, who generally no longer wear the protective equipment.
To solve this problem, a glass treatment process, existing in the sunshade industry, has been profitably used. In this field, the glass filaments are used for their non-inflammable properties (M0 classification). These sunshades are placed inside buildings in front of windows and must fulfil, in addition to solar filtration, an aesthetic function. For these purposes, the glass filament, generally called textile glass filament, is coextruded with a polymeric resin fire-retarded in the bulk and tinted to the desired colour. These yarns are then woven and thermally fused at the intersection of the yarns to lock the network of yarns.